The most delusional MLB fan bases in need of a reality check this season

They say that hope springs eternal for baseball fans this time of year, and in some cases, that's certainly true: Without any evidence to the contrary, it's all too easy to talk yourself into this season being the season, the one where all your players stay healthy and all of your rivals are doomed. But the opposite is just as often the case; without any evidence to the contrary, it's all too easy to let the bad vibes of the offseason bleed into the games that count.

All of which helps explain this wild poll of all 30 MLB fan bases, conducted by The Athletic at the start of the 2026 season. They call it the Hope-O-Meter, and it measures whether fans are optimistic or not about their favorite teams this year.

The Yankees directly next to the White Sox? The Dodgers breaking the scale entirely? There's simply too much to sink our teeth into here.

The most overly optimistic MLB fan bases entering 2026

Los Angeles Dodgers

I can't really object to this one on the merits; if I were a fan of a team that had just won back-to-back World Series titles, then added the best free agent and the best closer on the market in the offseason, you wouldn't be able to tell me anything either. I'm more just objecting on principle: The fact that Dodgers fans feel so comfortable being this optimistic about the 2026 season — 99.8 percent! — means that the other 29 teams in the league are now duty-bound to try and knock them down a peg.

Seriously: You can't get 99.8 percent of any group of people to agree on any one thing — that's how fat and happy the Dodgers' dominion over the big leagues for the past couple of years has made this fan base. And the most frustrating part is that they're not even wrong to feel that way! Even as a Yankees fan, I find that gauche. At least Dodger Stadium is slowly bleeding their wallets dry as compensation.

Pittsburgh Pirates and Cincinnati Reds

We're lumping these two NL Central rivals together in order to collectively hand them the "the bar was literally the floor" award. I understand that neither Pittsburgh nor Cincinnati has seen serious baseball success in a very, very long time, and I understand that these are two proud, passionate fan bases desperate for something to cheer about. But come on: Do you really feel like there's that much to get excited about on the field this season?

Sure, the Pirates finally spent literally any amount of money on the free agent market; that's a huge step forward by Bob Nutting's standards. But those same standards have left this team with a lineup that is still below average, a potentially league-worst defense and a pitching staff that doesn't have the requisite depth behind Paul Skenes. With a pitcher like Skenes, the goal should be going for it, and I don't see this Pittsburgh roster as anything more than a fringe Wild Card team.

But at least the Pirates tried this offseason. Reds ownership saw an exciting young team with a dynamite rotation embark on a miracle run to a playoff spot last season and promptly decided to sit on their hands; seriously, outside of a run at hometown hero Kyle Schwarber that was more for PR purposes than anything, few teams had a quieter offseason than Cincinnati, which brought back old friend Eugenio Suarez and then called it a day. A season-opening series win over the Boston Red Sox was fun, but I have a hard time taking this team seriously, when they should have been in line for so much more.

Atlanta Braves

Checking in at No. 16 doesn't seem that egregious at first blush, especially not for a team with a lineup that features the likes of Ronald Acuña Jr., Matt Olson, Matt Riley and budding young star Drake Baldwin. And yet, it still feels too high for a team that must have built Truist Park on an ancient burial ground or something.

After a 2025 season that was derailed by a cavalcade of key injuries, the Braves reported to spring training and ... almost immediately lost Spencer Schwellenbach, Hurston Waldrep and Spencer Strider to injury. Oh, and Jurickson Profar is now done for the year after a second positive PED test. There's still a decent amount of talent on this roster, but the pitching staff is a massive question mark, and more importantly, the vibes are at an all-time low despite Dom Smith's dramatic walk-off on Sunday.

The most overly pessimistic MLB fan bases entering 2026

New York Yankees

Look, I get it. I'm a Yankees fan, and I understand all too well the very specific kind of hell this team can put you in — no one wants to hear it from a consistently successful franchise with 27 world titles and more money than god, and yet all that success somehow results in increasingly bespoke forms of humiliation each fall. Which is why I'm placing my hand very gently on the shoulder of my fellow Bleacher Creatures when I say: Please, take a step back from the ledge.

Sure, Brian Cashman chose to largely run back the same team that got bounced from last year's ALDS rather than make a serious run at anyone from Kyle Tucker to Bo Bichette to Freddy Peralta. But ranking 23rd on this list is ... well, exactly the reason why everyone is sick of our nonsense in the first place. This is the same Yankees squad that had the best offense in baseball by a mile last season, coming off a spring in which everyone stayed healthy and multiple young players took meaningful steps forward! The rotation could be the best in baseball when Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodon come back and Carlos Lagrange and Elmer Rodriguez arrive! No amount of Aaron Judge choke jobs can adequately explain this level of negativity.

New York Mets

Granted, No. 10 is a pretty healthy showing here. But there appears to be some slight hesitation remaining in Mets fans about not just this season but about the direction of their franchise more broadly under president David Stearns and owner Steve Cohen. And while I certainly do sympathize with losing so many beloved members of a team's core in the course of one offseason — you do realize that Pete Alonso, Brandon Nimmo, Edwin Diaz and Jeff McNeil won approximately nothing in a Mets uniform, right?

Stearns exchanged Nimmo's sunken contract for a better one, refused to go above and beyond for a volatile closer in Diaz and appears to already be vindicated in his swing for talented outfielder Luis Robert Jr. The starting pitching remains dynamite, top prospect Carson Benge is a keeper and Stearns has managed to keep this team a contender while putting them in better, more flexible position moving forward. What's not to like, beyond the general sense that things will always somehow go wrong for this team?

Philadelphia Phillies

If we're engaging in purely vibes-based analysis — which might be the correct tack to take here — I get it. Phillies fans have seen nothing but diminishing returns since that magical run to the 2022 World Series, with three consecutive playoff flameouts all unfolding in basically the same way. And what's worse, Dave Dombrowski has responded to that worrying trendline by failing to upgrade this core in any meaningful way. The offense is still prone to going terribly quiet, and the rotation that was once a strength is slowly being whittled away.

And yet, I mean, this is still objectively one of the more talented teams in the sport. Would it really surprise people if Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber and Trea Turner all put up All-Star-caliber seasons, Zack Wheeler came back looking roughly like his old self and this team won the NL East or at worst the first Wild Card spot? And from there, why can't a team with this much high-octane pitching make some noise? I share the frustrations about getting lapped by the Dodgers (and potentially the Mets), but I implore Philly to keep the faith.